Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance

[900SL]

Changing the release date f

They never should have changed the release date from August to May. Making this film compete with the likes of Guardians 2 and Pirates 5 was a colossal error...Any info out there as to why the studio felt the need to move up the release date?

Where I come from we have an expression that seems oddly appropriate. You can polish a turd as much as you like, but it's still a turd.

If the film was any good we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[Gash]

I have 100% 0 interest in that and I would hate to see this movie try to shift its themes to current political satire.  I swear I never want to see Weaver in another Alien movie or have the tired and rehashed evil corporate guy show up again.

We agree on that.

[Nostromo]

You make crap, you get crap.

[Protozoid]

Changing the release date f

They never should have changed the release date from August to May. Making this film compete with the likes of Guardians 2 and Pirates 5 was a colossal error...Any info out there as to why the studio felt the need to move up the release date?

Where I come from we have an expression that seems oddly appropriate. You can polish a turd as much as you like, but it's still a turd.

If the film was any good we wouldn't be having this conversation.

A lot of people like Covenant, and it got good reviews, generally. But interest is low and they did the wrong things to generate more interest and it backfired. And personally, I have no interest now that they've abandoned Shaw and the Engineers. They might as well just be selling a toy line.

[Gash]

If the film was any good we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The film is good. Box office suggests apathy on the audience part, mostly in the US. Well that's the audience's loss.

And we'd always be having this conversation, this is a fractured fan-base Alien forum after all.

[Skywalker]

I believe the movie does not deserve that kind of treatment in ticket sales . I mean not to that extent for sure . But what does it make clear is that people a) do not actually care for the more philosophical approach (something that was partially abandoned with covenant due to the reception prometheus had but apparently its too late for that) b) people need to actually watch the movie before they badmouth it but audiences and internet people are too spoiled nowadays and jump to conclusions before even watching a film . Is this actually a bad film ? Definitely not . Is it great ? Certainly not but I believe its the best film in the alien universe after the first two masterpieces. Clearly the franchise has suffered after the story the dreadfull alien3 has taken and the subsequent films after that . What at first seems like a good idea to go into the unexplored territory of the origins , the philosophical approach did not click with people ( I actually enjoy the flawed prometheus ). What made the first two movies GREAT was a) the scare factor , the tension that builds up to horrifying events , the claustophobic feeling b) the action either being ripley trying to  get to the escape pod of nostromo or the marines blasting aliens . Those two ingridients plus the masterful direction made these two movies great. Those two elements are absent or are not presented with that kind of mindset in prometheus and covenant (although covenant tries to differentiate to a certain extent from the philosophical approsch). I believe either Ridley (with proper story-script material) or James Cameron are the only ones that can salvage thre Alien franchise . Its no wonder that everything went to hell after the first two movies . Same can be said sbout the Terminator franchise...

[Kane's other son]

This is an online poll among forum members. It appears that those hating it are a vocal minority. Reviews were also mostly positive.

[Richman678]

Well you cant use "But it's well reviewed" as an excuse for why sales dropped dramatically. Pirates 5 is sitting at 31% rotten tomatoes meter...and its opening weekend blows A:C away...A:C wished it had that as an opening weekend in fact.

Some have also suggested that moving the release date up was an odd move, and maybe factored into it. I also disagree. If the movie kicked ass like the others (1 and 2) than it would have done fine.....again it did not. If this movie came out in August in the state it is in today then you would have seen the same numbers...maybe slightly higher by like 5 or 8 million.

The movie is just as irritating as Prometheus was guys....I really did not want it to be that way

[Gash]

This is an online poll among forum members. It appears that those hating it are a vocal minority. Reviews were also mostly positive.

Don't confuse the matter with facts.

[900SL]

If the film was any good we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The film is good. Box office suggests apathy on the audience part, mostly in the US. Well that's the audience's loss.

And we'd always be having this conversation, this is a fractured fan-base Alien forum after all.

Whilst I respect your opinion, You're wrong.

If you are trying to argue that despite how many umpteen million dollars in PR and advance hype that the reason this film is floundering is because of the timing of the release, well, you're missing the point. The film is incoherent. It brings nothing original to the table, and treats existing fans who actually can remember earlier films with disdain.

[Kane's other son]

Well you cant use "But it's well reviewed" as an excuse for why sales dropped dramatically. Pirates 5 is sitting at 31% rotten tomatoes meter...and its opening weekend blows A:C away...A:C wished it had that as an opening weekend in fact.

Pirates is a PG-13 kids movie, the fifth in a franchise that banks almost a billion dollars every time. Of course its opening weekend blew Covenant away.

[fiveways]

I believe the movie does not deserve that kind of treatment in ticket sales . I mean not to that extent for sure . But what does it make clear is that people a) do not actually care for the more philosophical approach (something that was partially abandoned with covenant due to the reception prometheus had but apparently its too late for that) b) people need to actually watch the movie before they badmouth it but audiences and internet people are too spoiled nowadays and jump to conclusions before even watching a film . Is this actually a bad film ? Definitely not . Is it great ? Certainly not but I believe its the best film in the alien universe after the first two masterpieces. Clearly the franchise has suffered after the story the dreadfull alien3 has taken and the subsequent films after that . What at first seems like a good idea to go into the unexplored territory of the origins , the philosophical approach did not click with people ( I actually enjoy the flawed prometheus ). What made the first two movies GREAT was a) the scare factor , the tension that builds up to horrifying events , the claustophobic feeling b) the action either being ripley trying to  get to the escape pod of nostromo or the marines blasting aliens . Those two ingridients plus the masterful direction made these two movies great. Those two elements are absent or are not presented with that kind of mindset in prometheus and covenant (although covenant tries to differentiate to a certain extent from the philosophical approsch). I believe either Ridley (with proper story-script material) or James Cameron are the only ones that can salvage thre Alien franchise . Its no wonder that everything went to hell after the first two movies . Same can be said sbout the Terminator franchise...

The Terminator TV series gets f**king Fantastic later on.  I actually rank the TV series above T2 because of the last 5-6 episodes.  It was a great series that got all of its momentum killed by the writers strike and struggled to find identity during the early part of the second season to take a hiatus and come back as a f**king incredible series.  I really wish the third season got made. 

That said, Covenant was a movie made to appeal to a certain market.  Just they overestimated how big that market is. I wonder if Prometheus 2 would and distancing themselves more and more from the Alien universe might have been a good idea.  Still have the "DNA" of Alien in there but make it more Star Trek doing a horror episode and less Alien in its true form. 

Either way, we are where we are.  The movie isn't doing well, the franchise is up in the air, and the movie is polarizing.   

[marrerom]

So here is some information that puts Alien Covenant's poor numbers into context:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/us-box-office-had-worst-memorial-day-weekend-since/1100-6450403/

"total US box office haul for all movies in the Friday-Monday long holiday weekend came out to $172.3 million, the lowest in 18 years, dating back to Memorial Day weekend 1999, when the haul was $142.5 million"

It seems the poor Box Office had more to do with audiences not going to the theaters in general as opposed to anything else. Both Pirates 5 and Baywatch under-performed as well.


*edit*

Also from the article: "Another notable film was Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant, which made $13.2 million over the long weekend in the US, dropping substantially from its opening-weekend take of $36.2 million. The movie has now made an estimated $161 million worldwide, so it's looking good that the movie, reportedly made on a production budget of $97 million, will be in the black."

[Gash]

If the film was any good we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The film is good. Box office suggests apathy on the audience part, mostly in the US. Well that's the audience's loss.

And we'd always be having this conversation, this is a fractured fan-base Alien forum after all.

Whilst I respect your opinion, You're wrong.

If you are trying to argue that despite how many umpteen million dollars in PR and advance hype that the reason this film is floundering is because of the timing of the release, well, you're missing the point. The film is incoherent. It brings nothing original to the table, and treats existing fans who actually can remember earlier films with disdain.

And whilst I respect your opinion I consider you wrong.

I saw ALIEN in the cinema in 1979. I read Giger's Alien, and The Book of Alien around the same time, and Alan Dean Fosters novelisation. It's safe to say I'm a fan with much invested in ALIEN. I found nothing incoherent in Alien Covenant, but I was pleased to see it rekindling elements of the story that were there from the start but have been roundly ignored by 'the franchise.' I think that's the real issue, fans who have adopted Cameron's lore, or maybe Extended Universe lore (?) don't want Ridley harking back to what he took from the first film as he was making it.

[SpeedyMaxx]

You can keep blaming people who dislike this movie on Cameron or Aliens but when we address your points you ignore them and keep pigeonholing us.

I don't give a f**k about the EU and I prefer Alien to the sequels. I think Blomkamp's movie sounded awful. But Ridley f**ked his own golden goose on this one. His retcon deeply compromises the fundamental elements of the franchise.